Green Party Presidential Candidate Dr. Jill Stein: Annual Public Audit of the Fed is a “No Brainer”

In my role as a columnist at the California Independent Voter Network, I was lucky enough (or I should say, had a cool enough editor score this interview) to conduct a half hour interview by phone this weekend with Dr. Jill Stein, a Green Party candidate for president in 2012 who has been building a lot of momentum toward her party’s nomination in recent weeks, leading to her official announcement last week (video).

The full interview will be published Tuesday morning at CAIVN (and I’ll be sure to link to it here for those of you who are interested), but I couldn’t resist sharing a little sneak peek at what Dr. Stein had to say about monetary policy and the Federal Reserve with you fine readers at the Silver Underground.

When I asked about corporate welfare and handouts to big banks, Dr. Stein –who has been an outspoken supporter of Occupy Wall Street– had this to say:

“It’s a central issue of my campaign and it’s not just something that happened in the past. It’s still going on now. First there was TARP– and it wasn’t only the Tea Party who opposed it. Most Americans were strongly opposed to it. There were so many people calling in to Congress, and there were reports that the calls were opposed to the bailouts by a ratio of 10 to 1. But the lobbying effort got it passed anyway. And I’m sure you’ve heard about this, but the Fed has doled out $16 trillion since then in essentially zero interest loans, so this is still happening right now.”

After she mentioned the Fed, I just had to ask if she would support a full, annual, public, top-to-bottom audit of the Federal Reserve. She said:

“Yes. I say that guardedly, because I don’t typically like to endorse legislation on the fly, but that sounds like a no brainer. Disclosure is important. Transparency is important. And it needs to go further. After what our economy’s been through, after they were able to just loan out trillions of dollars to big banks, we need to completely revisit the role of the Fed and how it works.”

As a critic of central banking, I have to admit I liked what I heard. I didn’t agree with everything that Dr. Stein had to say, but I have to commend her as someone with an extremely good sense of the specific problems in Washington, and who the “good guys” are and who the “bad guys” are in America’s political landscape today. It was also encouraging to hear her suggest that monetary reform will likely have to go much further than just an audit. The Fed audit is a “no brainer,” she says, but “it needs to go further.” Dare I note here that America hasn’t always had the Fed or even a central bank? That previous central banks have been abolished before in American history?

Okay. Time to hit “publish” before I get too excited.

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Note: This post should not be construed as an endorsement of any candidate for political office. And do keep your eyes out for my full interview with Green Party Presidential Candidate, Dr. Jill Stein at CAIVN.org later this week.